"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Nancy Pelosi And Her DCCC Are On Their Regular Bi-Annual Mission To Save Darrell Issa's Career Again

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Friday, life-long opportunist Darrell Issa was on Bill Maher's show, Real Time, and declared himself one of the first House Republicans willing to stab Señor Trumpanzee in the back over Putin-Gate. "You cannot have somebody, a friend of mine Jeff Sessions, who was on the campaign and who is an appointee," he told Maher in regard to the question about investigating the Trump campaign. "You're going to need to use the special prosecutor's statute and office to take-- not just to recuse. You can't just give it to your deputy. That's another political appointee."High school drop out, car thief, arsonist-for-hire and general all-around hustler Darrell Issa got started in politics as an out-of-the-closet racist and then as a self-financed candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1998, losing the GOP nomination to a more mainstream Republican after spending $9.8 million of his own cash. Two years later, though, he managed to buy himself the GOP nomination for a San diego area congressional seat when Ron Packard retired. The Democrat in the race, Peter Kouvelis, gave up in the middle of the campaign complaining about the DCCC refusing to honor promises to help. Issa spent $2,304,833 to Kouvelis' $17,069. It was the beginning of a pattern. In 2002 the Democrats didn't put a candidate up against Issa at all. Two years later the DCCC refused it help Mike Byron, who raised $48,228 against Issa's $871,009 and wound up with 35% of the vote. In 2006, a huge Democratic year, it was Jeeni Criscenzo's turn to be screwed over by the DCCC and in 2008, another huge Democratic year (in which Obama beat McCain in CA-49) Robert Hamilton ran against Issa and was also hung out to dry by the DCCC. In 2010 Howard Katz got the same treatment. In 2012-- with Obama at the top of the ticket-- Jerry Tetalman expected help from the DCCC in his battle against Issa. He raised $131,168 against Issa's $2,478,710 and took 41% of the vote, the highest percentage against Issa ever. But the DCCC once again ignored the district and told the media it was unwinnable. They ignored Dave Peiser in 2014. And in 2016 the DCCC was completely prepared to do the only thing they know how to do in CA-49 (and most of the rest of the country): roll over and play dead.But something caught the DCCC unprepared-- a progressive retired marine colonel with a Bernie campaign staffer managing his race, Doug Applegate. Ignoring the DCCC entirely, grassroots progressive groups jumped into the race to help Applegate. He was able to spend $1,675,750 in the campaign (forcing Issa to spend a gargantuan $6,275,754). Confused and disoriented as usual, very late in the game the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC sensed Applegate could win and jumped in, ineffectively spending $3,231,961 on TV ads and other commissionable wastes of money. The see-saw Issa/Applegate contest was the last one to be decided in the whole country. In the end Issa won by 2,348 votes, 50.4% to 49.6%. The San Diego Union Tribune explained that "Issa, whose brush with political death came after cruising to re-election in years prior, likewise changed strategies to give more careful attention to his district. He ran a more typical campaign, complete with yard signs, town hall-style events, and a tour bus. He proposed legislation in direct response to complaints..." But Issa was a huge and early Trump supporter and the suburban San Diego/Orange County district wasn't buying Trump's fascist appeal. The district, which had given Romney a 52.4% win, handed Trump a miserable 43.2% loss.
Blue America endorsed Applegate in the summer of 2016 and a few days after Issa managed to worm his way back into office we were one of the groups who urged Applegate to run again, explaining how rare it was for someone to win a congressional seat on the first try and that 2018 would be a good year for Democrats because of Trump's and Ryan's expected agenda overreach. He was the first 2018 candidate to declare and the first candidate Bblue America endorsed for 2018. (You can contribute to his campaign by tapping the ActBlue thermometer on the right.)75% of CA-49 is in San Diego County and Applegate won in those precincts with 53.1% of the vote. It was the very wealthy Orange County suburbs, though, where Issa managed to eke out his victory, winning 60.5% of the vote in areas like La Costa, Vista, Oceanside, San Clemente and Carlsbad. As of Oct. 24, the last day to register to vote, 31.2% of CA-49 voters were Democrats, while 37.8% were Republicans and 25.8% were decline to state voters.OK, so that's the background. What is the DCCC doing now, early in the game, to defeat Issa in 2018? The more progressive folks in DCCC-world are gung-ho on helping Applegate finish the job he started last year. But "the more progressive folks in DCCC-world" are a distinct minority-- or have been-- and the team that has lost and lost and lost and lost everywhere and have always made certain to screw up CA-49, want to abandon Applegate and throw their support behind a FuelCell energy lobbyist and wealthy lawyer-- an Orange County Hillary operative from 2016, Mike Levin.Pelosi, now, unfortunately, almost completely senile and a raving idiot, has promised to "push" Applegate out of the race on behalf of Levin. Crazy Nancy doesn't understand that marine colonels backed by an activated grassroots don't get pushed by a discredited and failed establishment. Levin was a regular contributor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign but hasn't given any money towards defeating Issa. He now sees a path for himself to take advantage of Applegate's work and run against Issa himself. The party's vile corrupted establishment, triumphed yesterday in the DNC race, and is determined to keep pushing their careerist agenda. It's time for progressives to realizer the former progressive champion they once had in Nancy Pelosi is now a very different, very unsupportable, Nancy Pelosi. For the Democratic Party to prosper, she's got to go.

5 Comments:

Obama is also hugely to blame for the Democrats' disgusting Perez disaster, which won't get us anywhere. Neither he nor Pelosi apparently learned anything from their disastrous middle of the road non progressive approach to politics. Republican lite, with its corporate backing, won't get the Dems anywhere. They back lousy candidates and this will not excite the American people or serve us well if they get into office.

Stupid, stupid and shortsighted, both Pelosi and Obama. Very detrimental! And since Obama is such a smart man, this is quite sad. He continues to disappoint, now that he is out of office. I am sure he read many of FDR's speeches, as unlike Trump he reads, but he clearly did not absorb the meaning. He did not take it on. His choice of what he thought was the "high road" turned out to be the road to hell.

"Pelosi, now, unfortunately, almost completely senile and a raving idiot..."

Let me second that. 2 years ago I was on a Capital tour when the group was asked to "make a hole" so that Pelosi could get from one side to the other (maybe to blow some new lobbyists). She was almost literally carried through by 2 male aides. She was babbling incoherently (what I heard of it, anyway) and looked and walked like Keith Richards on a 3-day bender... only not that good.

And let me also opine that Pelosi may once have been an able rep for her SF district... but she could never have become the speaker nor the biggest fundraiser among the democraps if she wasn't utterly, completely, enthusiastically corrupt. She will be reviled by historians for that and her "impeachment is off the table" gamble that did win a presidency and a big house majority... for a short while. But leaving cheney in the presidency (yeah... I mean that) made us a nation of torturers and war criminals. Not a fair trade, especially when you consider the Ds' failures and betrayals in congress meant they are now in a permanent minority AND we got the D poser obamanation to make the cheney admin seem normal.

Hone and ap215, you are mistaken. They did what they did precisely because they shall prosper from it.

What, you think a nice slate of newly minted congresspeople that want to break up banks ala glass-steagall, jail officers of the TBTFs who fraudulently vacuumed $20 trillion from the globe, raise taxes on corporations and the rich, put the vampire squid health insurance "industry" out of business (SP), Rest the DOD by conducting peace... you think the money will keep the firehose of donations spraying???

That's why Bernie had to lose and why we were forced to choke on $hillbillary... why Ellison had to lose (there were other reasons), why Pelosi and scummer had to stay...